"Oh," said Breer, unimpressed. More to quiet the tick than out of fear, he rummaged in the pocket of his coat and found a handful of possessions. Some coins, a few peppermints that he'd continued to suck until his saliva supply dried up, and a bottle of aftershave. He proffered them with faint apology on his rouged face.

"That all you've got?" Swallows was outraged. He tore open Breer's coat.

"Don't," the Razor-Eater suggested.

"Bit hot to be wearing a coat, isn't it?" said the thief. "What are you hiding?"

The b.u.t.tons gave as he tore at the jacket Breer was wearing beneath his coat, and now the thief was staring, open-mouthed, at the handles of the knife and fork that were still buried in the Razor-Eater's abdomen. The stains of dried fluids that ran from the wounds were only marginally less disgusting than the brown rot that was spreading down from his armpits and up from his groin. In his panic, the thief pressed the knife more deeply into Breer's throat.

"Christ, man-"

Anthony, having lost his dignity, his self-esteem, and, did he but know it, his life-had only his temper left to lose. He reached up and took hold of the inquiring knife in a greasy palm. The thief relinquished it a moment too late. Breer, swifter than his bulk suggested, twisted blade and hand back, and broke his a.s.sailant's wrist.

Swallows was seventeen. He had lived, he thought, a full life for a seventeen-year-old. He'd seen two violent deaths, he'd lost his virginity to his half-sister-at fourteen, he'd raised whippets, he'd watched snuff movies, he'd taken every kind of pill he could get his trembling hands on: it had been, he thought, a busy existence, full of acquired wisdom. But this was new. Nothing like this, ever. It made his bladder ache.

Breer still had hold of the thief's useless arm.

"Let me go . . . please."

Breer just looked at him, his jacket still swinging open, those bizarre wounds displayed.

"What do you want, man? You're hurting me."

Swallows' jacket was also open. Inside was another weapon, thrust into a deep pocket.

"Knife?" Breer said, looking at the handle.

"No, man." Breer reached for it. The youth, eager to oblige, pulled the weapon out and dropped it at Breer's feet. It was a machete. Its blade was stained, but its edge keen.

"It's yours, man. Go on, take it. Only let go of my arm, man."

"Pick it up. Get down and pick it up," Breer said, releasing the injured wrist. The youth went down onto his haunches and picked the machete up, then handed it to Breer. The Razor-Eater took it. The tableau, with him standing over his kneeling victim, blade in hand, meant something to Breer, but he couldn't fix exactly what. A picture from his book of atrocities, perhaps.

"I could kill you," he observed with some detachment.

The thought had not escaped Swallows. He closed his eyes, and waited. But no blow came. The man simply said, "Thank you," and walked away.

Kneeling in the doorway, Swallows began to pray. He quite surprised himself with this show of G.o.dliness, reciting by rote the prayers he and Hosanna, his half-sister, had said together before and after they'd sinned.

He was still praying ten minutes later, when the rain started to come on in earnest.

65

It took Breer several minutes of searching along Bright Street before he found the yellow house. Once he'd located it, he stood outside for several minutes, preparing himself. She was here: his salvation. He wanted their reunion to be as perfect as he could make it.

The front door was open. Children were playing on the threshold, having been driven from their hopscotch arid skipping games by the onset of the rain. He edged past them with caution, anxious that his lumpen feet shouldn't crush a tiny hand. One particularly fetching child earned a smile from him: she did not return it, however. He stood in the hallway, trying to remember where the European had told him Carys was hiding. Second floor, wasn't it?Carys heard somebody moving about on the landing outside the room, but that pa.s.sage of shabby wood and peeling wallpaper lay across unbridgeable straits, far from her Island. She was quite safe where she was.

Then somebody outside knocked on the door: a tentative, gentlemanly knock. She didn't answer at first, but when the knocking came again she said, "Go away."

After several seconds' hesitation, the handle of the door was lightly jiggled.

"Please . . ." she said, as politely as possible, "go away. Marty isn't here."

The handle was rattled again, this time more strongly. She heard soft fingers working at the wood; or was that the slosh of waves on the sh.o.r.e of the Island? She couldn't find it in her to be frightened or even concerned. It was good H Marty had brought. Not the best-she'd only had that from Papa-but it took away every fiber of fear.

"You can't come in," she told the would-be intruder. "You'll have to go away and come back later."

"It's me," the Razor-Eater tried to say. Even through the haze of sunshine she knew the voice. How could Breer be whispering at the door like this? Her mind was playing unwelcome tricks.

She sat up on the bed, while the noise of his pressure on the door increased. Suddenly, tiring of subtlety, he pushed. Once, twice. The lock succ.u.mbed too easily, and he stumbled into the room. It wasn't mind-play after all, he was here in all his glory.

"Found you," he said, the perfect prince.

He carefully closed the door behind him and presented himself to her. She looked disbelievingly at him: his broken neck supported by some homemade contraption of wood and bandages, his shabby clothes. He worked at one of his leather gloves to take it off, but it wouldn't come.

"I came to see you," he said, the words fractured.

"Yes."

He pulled at the glove. There was a soft, sickly noise. She looked at his hand. Much of the skin had come off with the glove. He extended this seeping patchwork to her.

"You have to help me," he told her.

"Are you alone?" she asked him.

"Yes."

That was something at least. Perhaps the European didn't even know he was here. He'd come courting, to judge by this pathetic attempt at civility. His dalliance went back to that first encounter in the steam room. She hadn't screamed or puked, and that had won his undying loyalty.

"Help me," he moaned.

"I can't help you. I don't know how to."

"Let me touch you."

"You're ill."

The hand was still extended. He took a step forward. Did he think she was an icon of some kind, a talisman that-once touched-cured all sickness?

"Pretty," he said.

The smell of him was overpowering, but her drugged mind idled. She knew it was important to escape, but how? The door perhaps; the window? Or just ask him to leave: come again tomorrow?

"Will you go, please?"

"Just touch."

The hand was within inches of her face. Revulsion overcame her, bypa.s.sing the lethargy the Island had induced. She swatted the arm away, appalled by even the briefest contact with his flesh. He looked offended.

"You tried to harm me," he reminded her. "So many times. I never harmed you once."

"You wanted to."

"Him; never me. I want you to be with all my other friends; where nothing can hurt you."

The hand, which had returned to his side, suddenly darted up and took her by the neck.

"You'll never leave me," he said.

"You're hurting me, Anthony."

He drew her closer, and bent his head toward her as best he could, given the condition of his neck. In a patch of skin beneath his right eye she could see movement. The closer he came the more she saw the fat, white grubs that had been laid as eggs in his face, and were maturing there, awaiting wings. Did he know he was a home for maggots? Was it, perhaps, a point of pride to be flyblown? He was going to kiss her: she had no doubt of that. If he puts his tongue in my mouth, she half-thought, I'll bite it off. I won't let him do this. Gentle G.o.d, I'd rather die.

He put his lips on hers.

"You are unforgivable," said a thin voice.

The door was open.

"Let her go."

The Razor-Eater unhanded Carys, and drew away from her face. She spat to rinse the kiss off and looked up.

Mamoulian was in the doorway. Behind him stood two well-dressed young men, one with golden hair, both with winning smiles.

"Unforgivable," the European said again, and turned his vacant gaze to Carys. "You see what happens if you desert my custody?" he said. "What horrors come?"

She didn't respond.

"You're alone, Carys. Your erstwhile protector is dead."

"Marty? Dead?"

"At his house: going out for your heroin."

She was seconds ahead of him, realizing his error. Maybe it gave Marty an edge on them, if they thought him dead. But it wouldn't be wise to fake tears. She was no tragic actress. Best to feign disbelief; doubt, at least.

"No," she said. "I don't believe you."

"My own fair hands," said the blond Adonis at the European's back.

"No," she insisted.

"Take it from me," the European said, "he won't be coming back. Trust me in this at least."

"Trust you?" she murmured. It was almost funny.

"Haven't I just prevented your rape?"

"He's your creature."

"Yes; and he will be punished, depend upon it. Now I trust you will return my kindness in coming here, by finding your father for me. I will not brook delay of any kind, Carys. We will go back to Caliban Street and you will find him, or by G.o.d, I will turn you inside out. That is a promise. Saint Thomas will escort you down to the car."

The brown-haired smile stepped past his blond companion and offered a hand to Carys.

"I have very little time to waste, girl," Mamoulian said, and the changed tone of his voice confirmed that claim. "So please: let's be done with this wretched business."

Tom led Carys down the stairs. When she'd gone the European turned his attention to the Razor-Eater.

Breer was not afraid of him; he was afraid of no one any longer. The poky room they faced each other in was hot; he could tell it was hot by the sweat on Mamoulian's cheeks and upper lip. He, on the other hand, was cool; he was the coolest man in creation. Nothing would bring fear to him. Mamoulian surely saw that.

"Close the door," the European told the blond boy. "And find something to bind this man with."

Breer grinned.

"You disobeyed me," the European said. "I left you to finish the work at Caliban Street."

"I wanted to see her."

"She's not yours to see. I made a bargain with you, and like all the others, you break my trust."

"A little game," Breer said.

"No game is little, Anthony."

Have you been with me all this time and not understood that? Every act carries some weight of significance. Especially play."

"I don't care what you say. All words; just words."

"You are despicable," the European said. Breer's smudged face looked back at him without a trace of anxiety or contrition. Though the European knew he had supremacy here, something about Breer's look made him uneasy. In his time Mamoulian had been served by far viler creatures. Poor Konstantin, for example, whose postmortem appet.i.tes had run to more than kisses. Why then did Breer distress him?

Saint Chad had torn up a selection of clothes; these, with a belt and a tie, were sufficient for Mamoulian's purposes.

"Tie him to the bed."

Chad could barely bring himself to touch Breer, though at least the man didn't struggle. He acceded to this punishment game with the same idiot grin still creasing his face. His skin-beneath Chad's hand-felt insolid, as though under its taut, glossy surface the muscle had turned to jelly and pus. The saint worked as efficiently as he could to get the duty done while the prisoner amused himself watching the flies...o...b..ting his head.

Within three or four minutes Breer was secured hand and foot. Mamoulian nodded his satisfaction. "That's fine. You may go and join Tom in the car. I'll be down in a few moments."

Respectfully, Chad withdrew, wiping his hands on his handkerchief as he went. Breer still watched the flies.

"I have to leave you now," said the European.